Adventure Magazine Cover — page 95: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Radio Ray Chinatown that they’re getting to be the strongest tong down there. Picking some choice coolies for members, to develop them into gunmen and hatchet-men. “I know their joint well, because we searched it regularly every time there was a killing in the district. They’ve got rooms on the third floor of a brick building. In one end of the lodge-rooms is the biggest joss I’ve ever seen. Ten feet high if it’s an inch, and four or five feet thick at the waist. But I wonder why Burke didn’t go with the Sylph when she sailed yester- day?” ‘Probably lingered to complete his plans, while the Syiph went on ahead to get her cargo of Chinks,” was the logical deduction of Clarke. ‘‘He’s aboard her now, for he could easily overtake her with his speed- boat. But how about this fog? How the —— do you expect we can find the Syph out there on a night Jike this?” “If we can’t then my theory is no good,” responded Jerry confidently. ‘‘Fog or no fog, it’s all the same if my guess is right. But, Lord, what a night for a murder—or a wholesale smuggling operation!”’ Together the three went down to the Government wharf, where three patrol cutters, Namaveush, Sturgeon and Grayling, lay moored side by side. Jerry, leading the others, went from boat to boat, inspecting the wireless equipment of each. Even to Clarke, who knew nothing of the mysteries of wireless, it appeared that a change had been wrought ‘in the apparatus housed in the tiny cabins of each craft. Ordinarily the myriad of coils, shining in- struments and switches was enough to baffle his comprehension, but tonight it seemed that each wireless set had enhanced its complexity. There were additional coils, and, sus- pended over the receiving set, was some- thing that looked like a gyroscope. That is, it consisted of two hoops of hard rubber, each wound with a single layer of copper wire. One hoop was smaller than the other, so that it could be revolved inside the larger hoop on a single shaft which bisected them. Jerry smiled wisely at the puzzled expres- sion on Clarke’s face. “We'd better go aboard the Namaycush, Mr. Clarke,” he said. “I’ve explained to the skippers how we are to work. We steam in single file straight ahead until we are outside the headlands. Then we 89 swing in a circle five miles in diameter, play ‘follow my leader, and the Namaycush will lead. We keep doing that until we pick up what we’re after.” Outside they found the fog almost im- penetrable to vision, but by occasionally blowing their whistles they kept track of each other in the murk. And so on the big loop they started, the Namavycush followed by the Sturgeon and Grayling in the order named. They had been steaming for half an hour, with Jerry hanging over the shoulder of the} operator of the Namaycush, when the Sturgeon’s operator broke in— “Just heard them!” Immediately Jerry ordered the Vamay- cush put about, and the other ships followed her. For five minutes the Namaycush forged ahead while her wireless operator kept the telephone receivers glued to his ears. Suddenly he started, listened a moment, then handed the receivers to Jerry. As Jerry slipped on the receivers there came trickling through them the musical tinkle of a spark, the song of a high-fre- quency set— —coolies and Then silence. So bold had the smug- glers become and so cocksure of the in- fallibility of their system, that they were not even coding their messages! Jerry jumped for the wheelhouse. “Back up fifty yards!” he yelled at the captain. ‘‘And signal the other ships we're going astern!” Then he hurried back to the receivers again. Silence still brooded in the ether void, while he felt the throb of the propellers as the Namaycush gained sternway. A min- ute, two minutes, passed. Then spoke the strange spark again. “Tell the skipper to stop her right here!” Jerry directed his operator, ‘and give me the compass directions at right angles to our beam.” Apparently the operator of the strange wireless set was having dwficulty in making himself understood, for he was repeating the message; spelling out the words with painful precision and exactness: Boss says to with the cutters; we’re going in. The fog is too thick for us to be spotted. Have | vans at south turning-basin at twelve sharp. CORMICOOOKS (E@)